MEXICO CITY - A report issued
Thursday by Mexico's National Population Council indicates that the
Mexican population in the United States has grown enormously and that
the average length of migrants' stays have more than doubled since the
1990s.

The report, "The New Era of Migrations," indicates that the Mexican-born
U.S. population grew from 879,000 in 1970 to about 10 million in 2000.

The average length of stays by those Mexicans increased from 5.5 months
in the period 1993-1997, to 12.2 months between 2001 and 2003.

Only a fifth of the Mexican-born migrants gained U.S. citizenship.

"Undocumented migration of Mexicans (to the United States) became the
predominate modality," said Elena Zuniga, head of the population
council.